Freak Heat WavesPop Montreal, Montreal QC, Sept. 30

This latest incarnation of Freak Heat Waves have been pared down to a two-piece, with the band taking a more electronic turn over the last couple years from their formerly guitar-driven post punk. Here their loop-driven art rock oozed in slow motion, as Steven Raymond Lind's disinterested spoken word reverberated across the room.

Facing each other as a red light rotated between them, the duo played cuts off this year's Beyond XXXL, each song blending into the next — sometimes more gracefully than others. "Hypnosis? Drugs?" asks a glitched-out sample. We're left wondering what the answer is, as the band seemed lost in their own trance.

By the end we were locked into their introspective soundtrack, rumbling bass and sporadic ghostly melodies needling their way into the darkest corners of our minds.